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09 August 2011

Day 8: Prioritize

Day 8- Something I Hate...

This is difficult for me. There's not a whole lot that I absolutely hate. There are things that bother me sometimes, but hate? That's really extreme for me. I don't know...maybe it's just that I don't want to say I "hate" something, it sounds so unpleasant and nasty to me.

Things that aren't prioritized appropriately?

I guess...let's start with university parking, which, at least for a while, will thankfully be over for me after this week, because I will have my degree! If I go back for my masters' degree...but that's another story...I'll just have to deal with the Social Work Complex parking.

Some schools have really expensive parking, some are cheaper. University of Texas at Arlington isn't the worst, but I wouldn't rank their parking as great. $120 a parking sticker- up from $90 when I started as a freshman- and you get to park- and I calculated- 3/4 of a mile from the building you're going to. That's if you're going to one of the closest buildings. If you're going to one of the inner buildings, it could be more than a mile.

To make it even better, they're destroying student lots one by one, and moving them farther away from campus. They're adding faculty lots closer. They're building a parking garage- way on the outer edge of campus- that's supposed to alleviate parking problems. Yes, so everyone can park on the outer edge of campus, in a fancy garage that will probably cost more than what they're already paying. They destroyed 3 lots for an engineering building. They destroyed 4 more lots for a new special events center. They already have 2 engineering buildings and a special events center.

Meanwhile, the School of Social Work is the old early-20th century Arlington High School, 3 stories, not a lot of classrooms, and they're all very small. Don't plan on having a class more than 20 or so in any of those rooms. Sometimes social work classes get delegated to other buildings because they just don't fit. So instead of another engineering building, why don't they build an actual social work building?

I guess a better description of my "hate" would be the way that the funds I pay to the university are being used. They're more beneficial to all the other students. My benefits aren't much at all. They even closed the social work computer lab- it was using too much energy. Social work now has 1 printer and 9 computers. I take that back, Building B has a printer, but you have to supply your own paper, and I think it has 4 computers. Amazing. Meanwhile, the engineering complex completely overshadows the social work building, and they even built a corner...thing. Just a thing. Serves no purpose. Probably cost a lot of money. Just to look pretty. On the corner. All the engineering students are using our lot. They got a new building, and a ton of money spent for their fancy building, while we got our computer lab shut down.

Just goes to show where everyone's priorities are. It's ok though, because I don't want to be the priority. I don't deserve any entitlement. We do fine with what we have. We're problem solvers, we work things out, and we make things work. It's all working. I love everything about the school of social work, even if it's not perfect. Well...ok, not everything (or everyone), but in general, I love it. That's why I want to go into the masters' program, when I can. Hopefully, that time will come soon. You know where I'll be? In the school of social work. There may be things that I dislike, but that's my place, and I don't care if it's an old school or a new school, it's the place where I learnt everything I needed to know. It may not be perfect, but it serves its purpose.

Yes...I've missed classes due to lack of parking spaces!! Sometimes it gets way too ridiculous, and you're stuck with a) meter parking (but I don't carry change), b) parking illegally (I really don't like getting tickets much), or c) parking really far away and taking so long to walk that you miss class anyway. I've also d) stalked students that walk across the parking lot because there's really no other place to park and I'm in desperate need of a parking spot. The only thing I haven't done is e) given a student a ride to their car so I can take their spot...I really don't like letting other people in my car.